We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and in the world of music, imitation as well as outright theft happened and happens all the time.
I would imagine it was impossible to be a band from the San Francisco area in the late 60’s and early 70’s and not have a little Jefferson Airplane rub off. So it was for the band ‘It’s a Beautiful Day” which released a really interesting record in 1971. It was really two different records on one disc…Side One entitled “Choice Quality Stuff” and Side Two (featuring a different group of band members) called “Anytime).
It’s not often that a band goes through personell changes while they are recording a record but here we are..
The band first appeared in 1967 and were a progressive breath of fresh air. David LaFlamme’s voice and violin gave the group a nice sound and the debut LP featured a fantastic song called White Bird….here is the original and then a version from LaFlamme’s solo LP in 1976.
The first side of the 1971 Lp rocks. Creed Of Love and Bye Bye Baby roll right along. “The Grand Camel Suite includes some nice violin and “Lady Love” features some stinging guitar (I think from Hal Wagenet). “Words” is another standout and if youre wondering why it has echoes of Santana, the group at this point got contributions from Jose Chepito Areas, Coke Escovedo and Greg Rolie moonlighting from Carlo’s band.
Side two is a bit more mellow although LaFlamme and Sid Page (who came from another Bay Area Band-Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks) trade violin licks on the rocker “Bitter Wine”.
Plop this on and picture yourself in Peoples Park…or at Winterland…or the Fillmore West…the sun is shining over the Bay..and the sounds are transporting you. For those of us who were too young to make the trip…this is as close as we’ll get.
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